Yecheon World Cup: Deepika Kumari advances to her second consecutive semis

Deepika Kumari continued her scintillating form this year, advancing to her second consecutive World Cup semifinals at the Yecheon World Cup in South Korea, on Friday. She is the only recurve archer from India who will compete at the finals venue on May 26.

Having excelled in the ranking round earlier this week, Deepika secured the fourth seed in the elimination round. She lived up to her seeding and reached the semifinals after narrowly defeating Berra Elif Gokkir of Türkiye in the quarterfinals, 6-4.

Deepika faced an early scare in the first round, being pushed to a shoot-off by Tinkara Kardinar of Slovenia. She narrowly won, with a 9-ring arrow against Tinkara's 8-ring in the shoot-off.

Following this, Deepika displayed excellent shooting and had a comfortable run to the quarterfinals. Despite missing out on the gold medal at the Shanghai World Cup, where she lost to Lim Sihyeon of Korea in the final, she now has another chance to face Lim in the semifinal round in Yecheon on Sunday. The Indian archer will be seeking revenge and aiming to reach the top of the podium.

Meanwhile, Ankita Bhakat had a heartbreaking exit in the round of 32, losing 4-6 to Elia Canales of Spain despite leading the match 4-0 after the first two ends. Bhajan Kaur also faced an early exit, losing in the first round against Ariana Nur Dania of Malaysia.

Poor showing in men's recurve

In the men's recurve category, Indian archers had a disappointing outing as none were able to advance past the second round. Both Dhiraj Boomadevara and Pravin Jadhav lost their respective second-round matches. Dhiraj fell 2-6 to Pablo Acha of Spain, despite scoring a solid 28+ points. Pravin was defeated 1-7 by Chih-Chun Tang of Chinese Taipei.

Additionally, Tarundeep Rai and Mrinal Chauhan were eliminated in the first round. Tarundeep lost to Kazakhstan's Dauletkeldi Zhangbyrbay, while Mrinal was defeated by Steve Wijler of the Netherlands.